Chapter 42- Great Ruckus

Confused, Zhang Chengling trailed behind the two men. He reflected that his Shifu seemed to have turned into a different person since he had changed his face. The mood was so oppressive, even Gu Xiang had stopped being brash as she tagged along without daring to take a heavier breath.

And then, the pair who usually couldn't get together without digging at each other non-stop as a means of releasing their excess energy was entirely quiet, each keeping to himself as they marched ahead.

Zhou Zishu didn't bother with donning another mask. Nobody knew him around here, anyway.

His chest hurt as if he were on the verge of suffocation. The Great Shaman's words were like a solid blow that had struck straight to his ribcage.

If he had to renounce his kung-fu in exchange for a coin-flip chance at hope, then he'd rather not have any hope. That way, he could die with a serene heart.

Since times of old, countless wulin people had bled and perished in their quest of some fought-over secret manual. His kung-fu was something that he had honed over decades of strenuous practice, through the blight of winters and the dog-days of summers. It was something he had spent decades of laborious cogitation to figure out from scratch.

It wasn't some mere material possession or skill set. It was the essence of his being. His very soul.

What would it be like to have his kung-fu taken away? It would be like living without a soul. He may as well have let himself get turned into a comatose cripple when he had quit Skylight, blissful ignorance being doubtless easier to endure.

The Great Shaman must have understood this since, in the end, he had only sighed and hadn't tried to persuade him.

If one lost six po -anima out of the seven hun -souls1, if one was deprived of one's last dignity, wouldn't then existence be a mere debt owed to death2?

He wanted to live, but he didn't want a protracted agony.

Unable to refrain from it, Zhou Zishu suddenly sang at the top of his voice:

"Time flies like an arrow that I cannot catch,

Dreaded the years of age that from me detach;

At dawn the hill's blooming magnolia I clasp,

At dusk the islet's moribund weed I grasp;

Swift suns and brisk moons will not their course delay, Seasons permutate September into May;

In musing, I think of the plants that wither,

In trembling I look upon grace gone tither..." 3

His timbre was hoarse. Each word and each line excised grief, fear, and depression, and left behind the only rebellion and a wild sort of pride that he couldn't otherwise express.

He was born with that pride but had kept it twisting and turning within his heart for a long time. Now that he had reached the end of the road, now that he wandered amidst rivers and mountains that stretched thousands of miles around him, it was bursting out of his throat at last.

The day was gloomy, the heavy sky pressing down. As far as the eye could see, alone dirt path bordered by wilted trees trailed the boundless plateau. The uncaring northwest gale blew bleak, rustling through thickets and rock cracks like the wail of a mountain ghost. A millennium or ten millennia could have flitted by, feeling like a single

second.4

The wind billowed into Zhou Zishu's robes and wide sleeves, puffing them up as if telling him to with it go.

Wen Kexing looked up and gazed at the skeletal silhouette.

Stirred up by the gale, the long strands of hair at Zhou Zishu's temples flew about, lashing the side of his face like whips.

Wen Kexing closed his eyes and blocked out the bright, lingering afterimage, to concentrate fully on tasting the scorching pain.

The icy draught rushed into Zhou Zishu's throat, making him choke. His tune that was so off-key no sheet music could have transcribed it came to an abrupt cease as he hunched forward to let out a fit of coughs. On his near-transparent mouth, only a thin line between his lips showed a maroon red color — it drew a curve that resembled a smile.

Wen Kexing raised his head and reopened his eyes to peruse the celestial dome that seemed about to fall. A flake of something chill floated to his face — Dongting's first snow that year.

Why did brave men have to die? Why did beauty have to fray?

All of a sudden, a hard to articulate sense of rancor flared in Wen Kexing's chest. Perhaps for himself, or perhaps for another, he brimmed with it, unwilling to accept. His fingers shook as he felt like tearing apart heavens and earth because, with all-encompassing yearning, he wished to bring the firmament to account... What was natural

order5? And why should man submit to its laws?

Gu Xiang trembled in fear when her master turned back to look at her.

"A-Xiang," Wei Kexing said with a smile. "Do you like that foolish lad, Cao Weining?"

Gu Xiang started, looking back in confusion.

"Master..."

"Do you think he's nice?" Wen Kexing asked again.

Gu Xiang felt as if Wen Kexing was trying to bore into her soul with his gaze. A sudden and strange emotion overwhelmed her.

Was Cao Weining nice?

She recalled the guy's solemn face when he had said to her, "If you were mistaken and found out, I'm concerned you'd feel sad". She recalled the way he had turned back while blocking the old freaks' attack with his sword, to say to her, "Take him with you and leave first. Hurry!".

At that moment, she realized that nobody had ever told her to leave first in a situation of danger before. Without knowing why she felt her eyes sting at the thought.

She gave a wistful nod.

"Yeah, Brother Cao's pretty nice. He knows how to talk to people, and he's well-learned too..."

Wen Kexing laughed soundlessly at that.

"Yes, I'm sure he's the only person who could come up with the line ' While in springtime they sleep like dead pigs

past sunrise '"

Gu Xiang picked up on the sarcasm.

"The saying goes ' Sleepy spring; fatigued fall; summer siesta; hit the sack for three months hibernal '6," she retorted in a solemn tone. "Everybody gets drowsy in spring, so it'd be normal to sleep like a dead pig that can't wake up, wouldn't it? The way I see it, Brother Cao is spot on. He's way, way better than those bookworms who yack about 'chrysanthemums blooming in bitter frost'."

With amusement, Wen Kexing observed the young woman whose cheeks had taken on a faint blush. After a while, he nodded.

"All right, then. Let's go rescue him."

Gu Xiang started.

"Huh? Didn't that Lord Seventh guy say..."

"If I want to save someone, then I'll save them," Wen Kexing cut in loudly. "And if I want to kill somebody, then I'll kill them. I'll do exactly as I please, so let's see who the hell dares get in my way, shall we? What's with all the shilly-shally, anyhow? That prancy little pretty face stank of sour egghead from miles away; he wouldn't

understand a thing!7 A-Xu, are you coming with us?" "Would I dare not to," Zhou Zishu said, smiling.

The corners of Wen Kexing curled up, but his brows remained knitted, lending him an air of grimness. The mask he wore, made his face look quite scary.

"Good," he said. "A-Xiang, you go save whoever it is that you want to save. I'm with you, ready to stir up a big fuss."

Cao Weining cut a sorry figure. With his grimy, tattered clothes sticking to him and one eye swollen to the point he couldn't open it, he looked like a mudskipper fresh from rolling around in the muck. His hands were bound behind his back, and his sword had left his side. He staggered and stumbled along the way as people shoved and pulled at him, while every so often Feng Xiaofeng's dulcet voice thundered by his ear is not so tender expletives.

Despite all that, he felt oddly at peace.

He reflected that he was quite useless. His school's ancestral motto was "Live by the sword, die with the

sword, to uphold righteousness and eradicate evil"8, yet he had not only managed to get his weapon snapped, but people were also taking him as an accomplice of heretic wrongdoers.

But then, it wasn't that big of a deal. He had never thought himself some hotshot who should command wulin's respect and make it shake just from a stomp of his foot, anyway. As long as his conscience was clear and he had no regrets, it was good enough.

Out of the things he had witnessed with his own eyes, he had only seen Brother Zhou accomplish charitable acts, and Gu Xiang, a petite and delicate girl, protect the Zhang boy with all she had. Whereas so-called jianghu legends from the orthodox path had done nothing but drive them to further desperation.

What was orthodoxy? And what counted as heresy?

Being able to put things into perspective had always been Cao Weining's best personality trait.

Qingfeng-Sword had taught him to differentiate good from evil; it never trained him to pursue fame and personal interests. So what should he do if everyone else said he was bad? That he had veered off the righteous path and was disgracing himself?

Cao Weining thought it over and found that it did make him quite sad. But then, sad or not, he still didn't think he had done anything wrong.

Well, if people don't approve of me, he reckoned in a daze, and perhaps naively, then I should just forget about it. Everyone has their own life to live anyway, and it's not as if we have to get into each other's way. The only thing is... it does feel like I'm letting my Shifu and school-uncle down.

The Green Gent had probably broken one of his ribs: in between every breath he took, his chest blazed with pain, making him light-headed. He didn't even check his surroundings when people threw him into some dimly lit gaol. Closing his eyes, he sat to meditate, first things first. He planned to get his energy back before making his escape.

He did count on escaping — he didn't care about anyone else, but Gu Xiang was still all alone with Zhang Chengling. If they ran into the Scorpions again before she could find Brother Zhou and Brother Wen, wouldn't it be quite the fix then?

Sometime later (he couldn't have said how long), a commotion echoed from outside and a familiar voice made itself heard in a roar.

"Bullshit! When has our Qingfeng-Sword School ever produced a heretic? You two old freaks, on the other hand — 'Pink Matron' and ' Green Gent'? Scumbags, the both of you!"

Cao Weining perked up. The locked door to the small room he occupied burst open and a bunch of people walked in.

Cao Weining held his breath to squint at them and confirmed that the one person who'd been bellowing their outrage to the high heavens was none other than his school-uncle, Mo Huaikong.

Damn, he thought, my uncle's gonna blow a gasket.

Mo Huaikong had already blown a gasket, his top, and several stacks. The fire seemed to erupt from his ears when he

saw Cao Weining's wretched figure.

In a flip of his sleeves that harbored no respect for the old and venerable, he shoved the Green Gent and sent him falling flat on his ass.

"Mo Huaikong! You lunatic, what are you trying to do?!" the Pink Matron shrieked in fury. Mo Huaikong wasn't shy. In front of everyone present, he shouted right back.

"That's my school-nephew over there! Whatever misdeed he's committed, my brother, our grandmaster, will see to him. Who do your bunch of old freaks think you are to be butting in like a pack of meddlesome mongrels with their tongues hanging out?!"

Cao Weining inwardly cheered, thinking that although his school-uncle was a foul-tempered man, he still was on his side. But then, Mo Huaikong delivered his next line:

"Even when you beat a dog, you have to check who's the owner first!" Silent tears trickled in Cao Weining's heart.

Feng Xiaofeng was next to turn up the volume. He yanked over The Mountain whose eyes had been bandaged with gauze and pointed at Mo Huaikong.

"What a great school Qingfeng-Sword is! Why don't you ask your school-nephew what good deeds he's accomplished? The little witch he's been dallying with blinded A-Shan with poison! If she isn't brought to me, I'll dig out your little scamp's eyeballs instead!"

Mo Huaikong was about to retort when someone unidentified in the corner let out a snort.

"For such a young girl to use so vicious a trick, she must be a little she-devil for certain," they said in a frosty voice. "I do believe we're owed an explanation as to why Young Sir Cao is associating with a questionable woman like her."

That shut Mo Huaikong up; he turned to glare evilly at Cao Weining.

Cao Weining opened his mouth a few times before blurting out a pathetic: "Uncle."

"Who's your uncle?" Mo Huaikong snapped in a chilling tone. He marched up and seized Cao Weining by the back of his collar. "Who's the girl they are talking about? Speak!"

"She's... A... A-Xiang," Cao Weining said in a small voice. "But A-Xiang isn't a bad person! Uncle, A-Xiang, she... A-Xiang..."

The Pink Matron scoffed.

"A-Xiang? Ha. Calling her pet names, how endearing."

From another corner, Yu Qiufeng, who had just hurried back, threw in his two cents.

"For a young man to be beguiled by a woman's wiles is understandable. As long as you are willing to atone and start afresh, we can forgive you as we aren't a band of petty and narrow-minded p..."

But he was cut off.

"I'm gonna dig out his eyeballs!" Feng Xiaofeng bellowed before Yu Qiufeng could finish, successfully ruining the Huashan's Grandmaster's effects, whether on purpose or not.

Yu Qiufeng gnashed his teeth, looking as if he would have liked nothing better than to trample the dwarf to make him a few inches shorter.

At the moment, Gao Chong, Zhao Jing, and His Eminence Cimu were all occupied with organizing Shen Shen's funeral; none of them were in the vicinity. With the cat away, the mice came out to play to their heart's content. All the more unruly, the crowd worked up a rumpus with everyone and their neighbor chipping in.

Amidst the brouhaha, a tic came over Mo Huaikong's eyelid. He hauled up Cao Weining from the ground all in one go and fumed at him.

"Ungrateful cur, speak the truth. Where did that little witch take the Zhang boy after she kidnapped him?" "A-Xiang didn't..." Cao Weining tried to say again in between labored breaths.

It made Mo Huaikong so angry, he slapped Cao Weining across his face even though it was already so swollen, it looked like that of a piggy.

Just at that moment, a crisp voice trilled through the air.

"The little witch is here, looking at a bunch of shameless old farts — come get me if you can!"

Shock blew Cao Weining's mind— A-Xiang!

Notes

1. The "three hun (soul/spirit) and seven po (soul/senses)" is a Daoist concept. A person's "soul/essence" is composed of three hun (that I've translated as anima) or heavenly/spiritual souls that leave the body on death; and seven poor earthly souls/senses that die with the body. The Huns are yang in nature and exist in a person's mind. The pos are yin in nature and are the seats of passions that exist in a person's carnal envelope.

The three hun are variably listed as (hun connected to the heaven that wanders to the heavens after death; hun connected to the earth that lingers in the cemeteries after death, and the hun that runs one's fate and goes to the netherworld after death).

The seven po are joy, anger, grief, fear, love, hate, and desire.

The author is actually mistaken in conflating hun and po in this passage (they aren't the same and

there aren't six hun)

2. A poem that laments a life with nothing to live

for.

3. From On Encountering Sorrow, by Qu Yuan.

4. Variation on lit. (a thousand years is like a day) now a commonly used phrase is actually found in the Second Epistle of Peter (3:8). I can find no other Chinese references so I'm assuming that it has been popularised from the Bible.

5. is a concept in Zhuangzi's work. It's nature itself as well as its creator.

6. proverb translated literally.

7. WKX (in his obvious fit of jealousy) calls Lord 7th "a scholar that emits acid air from head to toe". "Acid air" means someone who's destitute/poor

8. translated literally.